News: 28th January 2015

French Exchange Trip to Marseille – Tuesday

Today our bus whisked us to Aix-en-Provence, a lovely town just 20 minutes from our school in Calas. We split into 3 teams and set out to discover who ‘killed M. Legrand’ and his weapon of choice! Our French hosts had prepared a brilliant murder-mystery tour of Aix, designed to help us discover the delights of Aix, improve our language skills, test our powers of pbservation and ask questions of passers-by……. By counting heads on the facade of the cathedral, ascertaining the names of French detectives, determining the specialties of Aix, discovering dates and names, amongst many other puzzles, we were able to eliminate the suspects and accuse M. Pinceur of the murder using a ‘clé anglaise’ (a spanner)! And, guess which team got the most points? Mrs Jenkins’s, of course!

After a very welcome ‘chocolat chaud’ or favoured alternative in a little café (the owner must have thought Christmas had come again when 22 of us walked in!), free time was much enjoyed by all. The young people reconvened clutching armfuls of mimosa, beautiful soap, trainers (the sales are on!), sachets of lavender ……. Aix is a very lovely town.
Some more French culture awaited us in the afternoon when we visited the Musée Granet, a gallery with exhibitions of art by local painters and those from further afield. We sampled the talent of Cezanne (of course) and Granet, Picasso and Klee, Ingres and Staël – and our GCSE artists were overjoyed to see the original Tête de Diago by Giacometti, a subject of study last year.

Another wonderful day. Back to the bus with an evening ‘en famille’ to follow. The teachers enjoyed a delicious meal at the house of one of the French English teachers with the rest of the English department – good food, exchanging of stories and much laughter made for a ‘très bonne soirée’!